Zitkala-Ša, Native American Rights Activist, Honored on New Quarter

Zitkala-Ša (1876–1938) worked throughout her lifetime to give voice and rights to Native Americans, including Indigenous citizenship and women’s suffrage. For two decades, I have had the honor to research her life and impact in American history through Smithsonian collection photographs. More recently, I nominated Zitkala-Ša for the American Women Quarters Program. Her story was selected for the 2024 quarter series.

Portraits of Zitkala-Ša from the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery and National Museum of American History were consulted for the design of the coin with the intent to (re)focus attention on giving her a rightful place in American women’s history. The words “Author, Activist, Composer” were included in the design to amplify her role as a teacher, musician, and writer, and to consider the social and intellectual connections that fostered her success.

Zitkala-Ša, which translates in English to “Red Bird,” was also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin. She was a Yankton Sioux woman born in South Dakota to a Native American mother and German American white father, who quickly left the family. She was educated at many schools, including White’s Manual Labor Institute (Wabash, Indiana, Quaker School), Earlham College (Indiana), and the New England Conservatory of Music (Boston, MA). With strong convictions, she became a teacher at the United States Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. She later became an accomplished author, musician, composer, and dedicated worker for the reform of American Indian policies in the United States. Zitkala-Ša lived and worked in two worlds, navigating Native American culture and Western society to make an impact on her world and future generations.

By 1896, Zitkala-Ša was a strong-minded student scholar and celebrated orator, and she firmly opposed to the “Americanization” of Indigenous people. She penned articles in Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s Weekly, and published short stories and books that contained both autobiographical writings and American Indian legends. In 1921, her book American Indian Stories was published, further establishing her recognition as an American author and strengthening her position as an advocate for Indigenous rights.

In addition to being a writer, Zitkala-Ša also trained and performed as a concert violinist and composer, including co-writing the first Native American opera, The Sun Dance Opera, completed in 1913.

From 1900 to her death, Zitkala-Ša worked tirelessly for American Indian citizenship rights, independence, and tribal sovereignty. She joined the Society of American Indians in 1907 and became co-editor of the American Indian Magazine. Through her leadership in the Society of American Indians and respect across Indigenous communities, she influenced Congress towards the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 and the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. She also co-founded the National Council of American Indians to advance voting rights, healthcare, legal status, and land rights, and she started the Indian Welfare Committee within the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, expanding the recognition of the rights of Indigenous women more broadly in U.S. society.

Zitkala-Ša lived in and around Washington, DC, and northern Virginia from 1911 to 1938. She and her husband, Raymond Bonnin, worked in Washington, DC, to advance the rights of Native Americans. They continued working within Native American organizations advocating for reform and lobbying for full citizenship rights through World War I, the Pandemic of 1918, and into the years of the Great Depression. Finally, Congress passed legislation for American Indian Citizenship in 1924 and new land rights legislation in 1934.

Zitkala- Ša lived an independent, motivated, and quite accomplished life, but her story is almost forgotten today. Research for the 2019 Smithsonian American Women book brought me back to reconsidering Zitkala- Ša’s remarkable life and relentless activism for American Indians rights in the early 1900s. In the lead up to the centennial of the 19th Amendment in 2020, focus on Zitkala- Ša’s achievements and her story have been recognized more fully. Her first biography was published in 2016, her and her husband’s archives are now being researched at Brigham Young University, and many museum collections and Tribal Cultural Centers are reinterpreting Indigenous women’s history collections. The creation of the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum in 2020 also created renewed interest in Native American Women’s History at the Smithsonian. Through my efforts and other Smithsonian colleagues, I hope that Zitkala- Ša’s legacy will continue to have a prominent place in history, so others may come to understand her aspirations, her accomplishments, and to be inspired by her drive for the best for her family, community, and for the nation.

References

• Lewandowski, Tadeusz, Red Bird, Red Power: The Life and Legacy of Zitkala-Ša. Norman, OK: The University of Oklahoma Press, 2016.
• Zitkala-Ša. Old Indian Legends, retold by Zitkala-Ša. Boston & London: Ginn & Company, 1901.
• Brigham Young University Special Collections, Zitkala-Ša 1876-1938.

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Michelle Delaney | READ MORE

Acting Associate Director for Museum Research and Scholarship, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.